1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with

Just your regular old press release targeted for you taco- and baseball-lovin' lovebirds:

TACO BELL® SAYS "I DO" TO ONE LUCKY SPORTS FAN

Taco Bell® Unveils All-New 7-Layer Crunchwrap® And Offer To Use
Virtual Signage Behind Home Plate During Nationally Televised
Major League Baseball® Game on FOX

Irvine, Calif.  Sports is all about the big moment, celebrating the love of the game and sharing some great food between friends. Now, to launch the all-new 7-Layer Crunchwrap®, Taco Bell will bring all three to life by giving one lucky sports fan the opportunity to pop the big question during a Major League Baseball game nationally televised on FOX on the luckiest day of the century: 7/7/07.

In an ultimate expression of user generated content, a consumer will be able to utilize, for the first time ever, the 21st century technology of virtual signage behind home plate and tailor a specific wedding proposal to their significant other. Forget hiring a sky writer or plane towing a banner to grab someone's attention, this virtual signage will be displayed on every television broadcasting the Major League Baseball game and seen by millions, making it one of the most watched proposals in history.

To enter, log on to www.tacobell.com and click on the "7 Layers of Love" icon from April 26 through May 27 for your chance to win. Once there, submit "7 reasons why your significant other would be lucky to marry you" as the winner will be chosen on the basis of creativity, appropriateness to theme and the ability to display true love.

The 7-Layer Dip has long been a party favorite, displayed for all to sample during the big game and Taco Bell has reinvented it, making it easy to eat for those on the move. For on-the-go Taco Bell lovers, the 7-Layer Crunchwrap® is dip made portable, filled with hearty beans, warm nacho cheese sauce, zesty red sauce, chunky guacamole, fresh tomatoes and cool sour cream, wrapped up and grilled to go.

One Grand Prize Winner will be able to propose marriage, using virtual signage behind home plate, during a nationally televised Major League Baseball game on FOX on 7/7/07 (weather permitting and subject to scheduling) and one year's supply of Taco Bell food (awarded in the form of $500 in Taco Bell Bucks). Six Runners-Up will each receive a year's supply of Taco Bell food.

No purchase necessary to enter. Ends 11:59 P.M. ET on May 27th, 2007. Must be 18 years or older and a legal resident of U.S. and District of Columbia to enter. Subject to official rules at website. Void where prohibited.

Taco Bell is the "Official Quick Service Restaurant of Major League Baseball."

That's one of the lamest promotions I've seen. Getting engaged with the help of Taco Bell at a ball game is like having a Pizza Hut delivery driver tell you that you tested positive for an STD. It just doesn't make sense (to me anyway), but I'm sure people lacking any creative thought(sheep) will eat it up like a Mexican pizza..........

how is this the "first time ever?" Technically, isn't everyone free to purchase the ad space? I also find it very dubious that any little girl grows up dreaming of her engagement being sponsored by the all- new 7-Layer Crunchwrap (R in a circle).

8. Oh, you just have no sense of romance and fun. I can think of no partner in a proposal that would be more appropriate than Taco Bell and the Seven Layer Crunchwrap. Oh, if I only wasn't married already, perhaps I'll get a divorce just to meet a new girl and enter the contest.

I might have missed this (as unfortunately I've missed much lately), but are Furcal and Penny like best buddies on the team or something? Maybe the camera just coincidentally catches them together alot cutting up.

9 - I got into a discussion with people at work about the existence of that word. They organize confrences and they kept saying: "What about the signage?" "Is there a enough signage?" I asked if it was even a real word, and they said it was, something like "wordage." Which to me is like saying "Superman is real, just like Batman." But, hey whatever floats their boat.

21 & 22
Just so you notice, those are close to (if not actually) violating rule 5. Or maybe you don't care. Or maybe it doesn't matter because no one else cares; and we all think that everyone else shares our viewpoint.

And I didn't mean that as an attack, or a disagreement. I just notice from time to time the implication that everyone reading agrees with a viewpoint whether it's Pierre or politics. Or the old 'objectification of women' thing (guilty). Which is OK, because part of the coolness of this place is feeling like you're among friends and that people get what you're saying. But sometimes it is the off-the-cuff remarks that bring me up short.

And for all I know I am the worst; but I strive not to be. I do have a sort of reverence for this Blog as much as Dodger Stadium... and we all might have differing ideas on what lowers the standard of conversation.

29 - I like to say (in jest of course) "utilitized." That said, interesting note from dictionary.com:

Usage Note: A number of critics have remarked that utilize is an unnecessary substitute for use. It is true that many occurrences of utilize could be replaced by use with no loss to anything but pretentiousness, for example, in sentences such as They utilized questionable methods in their analysis or We hope that many commuters will continue to utilize mass transit after the bridge has reopened. But utilize can mean "to find a profitable or practical use for." Thus the sentence The teachers were unable to use the new computers might mean only that the teachers were unable to operate the computers, whereas The teachers were unable to utilize the new computers suggests that the teachers could not find ways to employ the computers in instruction.

28 - I am sorry, though there is a line somewhere where it isn't a question of politics and more one of morality. Gay rights aren't a political issue for me, it is a moral imperative, and the idea of someone being offended by a gay friendly discussion is straight up offensive. I apologize however, because this is not the place for such a discusion.

I received my handsome DT T-shirt yesterday as well. And a wave of dread came over me.

I realized that I've owned 4 other Dodger t-shirts over the past 10 yrs or so: Piazza 31, Mondesi 43, Nomo (sanshin), and Team Depo. And each of the aforementioned was summarily dismissed from Dodger service (for Nomo it was the first time) very soon after I suited up. It's bad enough that I've considered buying a Pierre shirt just to test the theory.

Now, I'm nervous that Jon will pack up shop and start D-Ray Thoughts just because I have cursed this place. Someone talk me down from the ledge, because it's cool shirt and I want to wear it without a feeling of doom.

21 and 22 were off-the-cuff humorous comments. I don't think any reasonable person could find them offensive. Maybe they skirt the Rule 5 line a little bit, but I don't think post 28 was warranted at all.

(Quietly agreeing with Toy and Ben)
---
I was bored so I read through the in-game comments on that Cardinals' blog. Pretty amusing. Especially to see them talk about Vin Scully. At least there were no more wacked-out trade proposals with the Dodgers.

25. The language is always changing, and personally, I have no problem with "fake" words. This isn't Spanish or French where we have an institute handing out edicts about what are the words, (or in Spanish what are the actual letters of the alphabet). English is an organic language with some basic rules and we all work from that. At what point exactly was English perfected and no new words were allowed?

33. - Insofar as the term "politics" refers to the activity of the "polis" in a way similar to the relationship between the terms "athletics" and "athlete," one could argue that political and moral issues are necessarily connected. Abortion, gay-rights, gun-control, global-warming, socialized health care, and tobacco are all issues that are both moral and political and should all be avoided at all costs.

There was a note on Dodgers.com about the Angels series vs. all righties, and who will play DH - mostly Saenz - and possibly Betemit, the only LH hitter on the bench. I was thinking, wouldn't it make sense to have Gonzo DH one game and have Clark play out there for him, but then I realized Clark is a righty, too, so that wouldn't add an extra lefty to the line-up. Sure would make sense defensively though.

40, 41 - I am far enough left of center that I don't want the government interfering in my social issues at all, but obviously that is a political position. For me, gay rights are like race rights, which overrides politics and transcends into another realm altogether. Still, in our current climate, clearly this is a rule 5 issue and I will put it to bed.

If this turned into Jerry Falwell Thoughts then I would have to blank out all of my rule 1 violations.

48 - My favorite example of this is the word "nauseous" which is defined as: "Causing nausea; sickening" but it commonly used as "Affected with nausea." This usage is so prevalent that it is now the standard.

Note: The Random House Unabridged Dictionary says that both usages are correct, and historically have always been correct, but the American Heritage Dictionary disagrees.

There is a quote I heard in college that I always liked, 'In polite company one never speaks of sex, politics, or religion, but in intelligent company one speaks only of sex, politics, and religion.' It was attributed to G.B. Shaw, but I've never been able to prove that or find out who did say it.

Anyway this is clearly intelligent company, but it is also polite company. It makes the line between impolite and witty a bit harder to define. Juice Blog has a bit to say about that. Personally, in this company, I'd prefer to focus on the wit and less on the manners.

In the who'd a thunk it dept......the Dodgers 25 wins is tied for the league lead.
Looking back on the sad state of affairs following the 2005 fiasco .... you can't help but grin.
In other news....Tomko is getting skipped over....resulting in a 8 man pen. Is that necessary?

This from the organization that trots out Mike Shannon and Al Hrabosky as beloved and iconic broadcasters?

(Speaking of Shannon, last night he did a pre-game interview with Don Newcombe. It was really interesting, especially when Shannon spent several minutes trying to think of the name of "that Colorado pitcher... the lefty... Mike something-or-other..." and then Newcombe said "Mike Hampton?" Hilarious.)

Of those, "than/then" is the most perplexing. It's not a grammar issue, or a synonym issue. The two words have nothing to do with one another. I have no idea how people get these confused, but some do.

And the answer to the question "when did English stop changing" is obvious: when I finished high school. However, I'm willing to grant an exception for bootylicious. That's just too creative to ignore. There's no synonym, so clearly, it was a word we needed to make the language complete.

65 - Well that or pretend that you aren't thinking about sex. Or politics. Or religion. But mainly sex. I concur with weatherman's statement that fart jokes do remain the gold standard of humor in both categories.

To continue the bashing of the Cardinals' broadcasters, one of the nobodies in last night's pregame coverage, after telling us that JD Drew was the answer to that night's trivia question, followed up with:

Terry, no, for the most part they were much happier listening to Vin vs. the Cardinals' buffoonish announcers, except for one guy - but most of them were surprised at how much knowledge Vin has seemingly out of thin air. And how he can be his own color man. Mostly they were just amused by the change, and to hear a real old school guy. But no for the most part they weren't derogatory as much as stunned.

I'm still trying to figure out "If you're writing a thesis or something, you could finish it in a week or so if you were catching this guy." -- do I need to knock back several scotches before I can translate?

This is Dodger forums .... so I need to keep it the Dodgers......but DePodesta was a bust for us. Thank God for the present ..the here...the now....and the follies of 2 years ago are gone......4ever. He's the Padres baggage. Let them trade for their Kouzmanoffs ... sign their Cruz's ... and start their Wells'. We'll just sit back ... chuckle ... and enjoy 1st place.

I think Vinny is at his best the 1st game of every series. By the 3rd game I'm tired of the same stories but at least I know what is always going on in the game. I still think he's wasted on TV and should be doing 6 innings of radio with Langer doing the other 3. No color man. I don't need the insipid insight of Monday/Ruess/Downing/Karros. I would get more done instead of watching TV and I'd enjoy the game more. A double win. I guess I just need a radio that broadcasts the TV audio.

94 I don't feel bad at all about Jose Cruz, Jr. He's so erratic - he gives some good at bats but over the course of a year. Certainly he'd be cheaper than Pierre, but separate from that I don't think getting rid of Cruz was a big deal nor do I think he could have gotten much for him. Cody Ross: I felt a little bad that we got rid of him then, but it was sort of like Wilson Valdez - do you think he'll keep it up, and is he worth holding up a roster spot for. I do wish we'd gotten more for him but he hadn't exactly done much in the majors before then to warrant a hefty price tag. I wouldn't mind his power coming off the bench, though. But I'd rather that roster spot eventually (soon) go to Kemp.

94
Not from here. I have zero interest in having Ross or Cruz playing CF even as much as I dislike JP. Now if were talking Shane Victorino then I'd pipe up because Shane can play CF, has an arm like Repko, can run like Pierre, is gracefull like A Jones, can steal bases like Furcal, and has just enough power to keep the outfield honest. As a corner outfielder he's miscast, as a CF I'll take him.

102 - Absolutely. What is the greater sin: holding on to a player who ends up playing poorly or getting rid of a player who ends up being productive? We have gotten rid of more deadwood than we have acquired over the last couple of seasons (he claims, having little evidence to offer in support).

Cust can't play in the NL so it seems to be a moot point. I think they took his glove away several years ago. Depo was just doing him a favor getting him some ab's so he could have one last chance and it has worked out great for both Cust and the A's.

107 I believe an article in this years BP annual calculated that his moves resulted in no change one way or the other. He pretty much gave up exactly what he got back. I'd have to have it with me to tell you the exact numbers.

Yes, yes, let's talk about grammar. If you were my students, you would all have lost serious points for several important and maddening errors.

1) The case of "whomever", like that of "whom" is governed by the case for its use in the relative clause. Thus, "I will be happy to see whomever plays CF, as long as it's not Juan Pierre." Is very wrong and nauseous. However, "He is spectacular, whomever Grady Little puts in CF, so long as it's not Juan Pierre." is perfectly acceptable.

2) "Its" is a possessive pronoune like "whose" and "my, mine". "It's" is a contraction for "it is", and has no place in an academic paper-- but goes well on this blog.

3) And where did you people learn that "-'s" is the way to pluralize a noun? "David Wells'" is not the plural for "David Wells". Rather, you would be forced, if you decided for some reason to use such a construction, to say "Davids Wells". How on earth someone came to the conclusion that the plural for "Cruz" is "Cruz'", I have no idea.

You might criticize me for my putting punctuation outside of quotations marks, but I will defend that to the death with reasoned arguments and appeals to sentiment.

124 - I occasionally improperly use an ellipse to signify that I trailed off, rather than omitted something. However, a few posters recently have used them as the sole form of punctuation, which seems excessive.

When I worked in the call center raising money for SUNY Buffalo, we used to play games as an incentive for success. We would play in teams based on the rows we sat in. Once a teammate suggested that we call our team the "Al Gores". I was, of course, infuriated by this, and suggested that we call ourselves rather the "Als Gore", which lasted for some time, until I came up with "The Desmonds Tutu", which I thought was by far the better name.

129124 - I occasionally improperly use an ellipse to signify that I trailed off, rather than omitted something. However, a few posters recently have used them as the sole form of punctuation, which seems excessive.

116 Makes some good points but then misspells "pronoun" so, nyah! The "their/they're" mistake always drives me batty, as a copy editor, as does people who say "that" when they mean "who" (referring to a person). I always helpfully suggest the Schoolhouse Rocks DVDs to those people just for fun.

I asked my girlfriend about the Taco Bell contest and now she wants me to enter. So at least one girl thinks this is a good idea. She isn't really representative of the female population as a whole though since she watches baseball every night.

131 I suppose so. As I suggested, I would prefer "...sign their Joses Cruz and their Davids Wells." I always treat last names like adjectives, so that they don't really have a plural form in English. Ancient Romans treated there names like adjectives "gens Cornelia" was the "clan of the Cornelii". The form "Cornelia" is feminine because the noun "gens" is feminine. The Athenians, like many others, used a patronymic, and later identified themselves (at least officially) by their "deme", so that they used an elaborate phrase for their name "Sokrates tou Sohproniskou", that is "Sokrates, son of Sophoniskos." Since we don't use a construction like that, I just function under the assumption that our last names are adjectives.

Betemit is the better player ... right now ... despite that fact ... Grady will start LaRoche 60-65 percent of the time ... and that's the right call. Betemit's bench presence calls for it. LaRoche has inspired Betemit to play better ... that's a stat that can't be measured.

139 I think the commenters on this blog came up with a similar stat to measure the impact of Lofton's lighting of fires under JD Drew, so that I think we can come up with something. C'mon, D4P, a PhD in whatever mathematical field you're in has to be good for something.

135 Well, I just did some perusing of the upcoming schedule, after this weekend with the mostly righthanded Angels, they face two righthanders (Suppan and Sheets) and then in their next 11 games, one with the Brewers, 3 game sets with the Cubs and Nationals and then a four game Friday-Monday series in Pittsburgh, the Dodgers are projected to see 5 lefties in those 11 games.

So it is certainly possible that there will be some split time at third base but perhaps we will see a call down to bring up a certain righthanded outfielder if the Dodgers decide they don't need 12 pitchers?

137 That's an interesting take on it, but treating surnames as adjectives seems to break a lot of common usage. Complete the following sentence by using your prefered form of the word described by the phrase in parentheses:

All (people named Smith) ____ are English.
All (people named Cruz) ____ are Spanish.

133 I think we have elaborated the use of the noun-phrase in english so much that it's impossible to get it right. I prefer "who" in those cases, because one cannot decline "that". Of course, deciding whether "that" like any neuter noun or pronoun has been a matter of context for all Indo-European speakers for all time, so I should just get off of everyone's case.

141 We should stop this. I think people are reading these comments and typing and editing and re-typing and checking their comments and eventually deciding not to post. But, yes, that is a strange one. Spelling is the one aspect of grammar that I don't often penalize my students for. I will mark off for the frequent misspelling of Roman names, but less often for Greek names.

(wait, what about all those people here that use "supposably", are you aware that they don't agree with you? Is that politically motivated or what? Maybe you need to try and be a little more sensitive man!) (<-- me making fun of myself)

LaRoche is too young to be this year's Robin Ventura Memorial Fire-Lighter, though. Platoon for now, but I wonder if eventually they have other plans for one of them - Betemit spelling Kent is one use, of course.

149- There's a local City Manager who is (it's been rumored) being pushed out of his job for having an affair with a young City Hall employee, not his wife. Is there a class for that? Also, is there a class for picking which bribes to take?

There's a local City Manager who is (it's been rumored) being pushed out of his job for having an affair with a young City Hall employee, not his wife. Is there a class for that? Also, is there a class for picking which bribes to take?

If so, they'd be in a public administration or public policy kind of program, not so much city planning. But I suspect figuring out whom to have affairs with and accept bribes from comes naturally to the type of person who would have affairs and/or accept bribes.

151 I think of quotation marks as marking off a word or a series of words as a noun, when it wouldn't otherwise be thought of as such. For instance, I will say something like "'Blue' is a word with a color as a referent, unlike 'Jose', whose reference is a person." I will put the punctuation within the quotes, if I am quoting a sentence, which requires punctuation, but not, as is the case with 'blue' and 'Jose', if the quotation marks are being used to set off the word as a noun, or signifying my use of it as a noun.

168 - She isn't shy about saying you should propose? That is forward to an extreme, and you should probably decide either way ASAP (if she likes baseball then she sounds like a keeper, but I guess there might be one or two other considerations).

Are you guys doing this so I never post again? I have no fear of anything baseball related but grammar and I parted company when I was 10 and whenever she tries to get back into my good graces I pummell her senses with cries of agony until she saunters away into the shadows, lurking for her next opportunity to destroy my self esteem.

Condition Red -- Felipe Lopez has a single, double, and triple, in that order, but needs either a few baserunners in the bottom of the eighth or the braves to tie the game up so he sees the bottom of the ninth to get another AB.

182 That's a tough one. I would classify those as substantive adjectives. But when we use adjectives substantively, we are able to pluralize them. But I certainly never said that they can't be used as subjects of a sentence, did I?

189 Those are nouns, not substantive adjectives. These are substantive adjectives:

Look for the brave [Scots].
Look for the wise [DePodestas].
Look for the scraptastic [Pierres].
Look for the strong [smiths, in an iron-working sense].
Look at the bored [Dodgerthinkers].
Look for the fresh [ideas].

Substantive adjectives are adjectives imbued with sustance of a noun. They replace it in the sentence. The bracketed words, are, in this case, the noun donors of this substance. If they were included in the sentence, the nouns would not cease to be nouns.

A nice string of substantive adjectives. In this case the replaced word is "people":

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11

197 - Most English names are Germanic, thus can and should be used as nouns. Schmidt and Backer have become Smith and Baker, for instance. Latino and Hispanic names are perhaps a different story as they have Romantic, thus Latin, roots. That said, for the sake of consistency, I think one can and should refer to "Al Gores" when referencing a particular Al Gore and "Als Gore" when discussing multiple Gores named Al.

200 - What about a bunch of people named Cruz? Should we just rename him Cross, refer to a bunch of them as Crosses and move along? Are you asking me to know the etymology of a name before I pluralize it? That's madness! Madness, I say!! We have rules for nouns and if all these borrowed names are going to come into this language, then doggumit they need to follow the rules all the native names follow.

202 - Like I said, the Latino and Hispanic names are going to be a problem. Think about the bizarre rules we have for pluralization. Duck-ducks, deer-deer, datum-data, alumnus-alumni, sarcophagos-sarcaphagoi--I could go on and on. That is why English is such a silly language. It does, however, makes discussions like this a lot of fun.

227 The Angels have only one lefty in their 'pen (Darren Oliver), and he has an ERA approaching 8. You know Scioscia will take him out if Saenz pinch-hits. If I were Grady I'd encourage Scioscia to leave him in as long as he wants.

From the thread referenced in 158, in th midst of a "who's the next GM going to be" discussion - talk about a delayed jinx: 150. Uncle Miltie 2005-11-14 16:55:57According to rotoworld, the Cubs are close to acquiring Juan Pierre. Colletti wouldn't have wanted him anyways, he's under 35.

Our man Russell Martin has started in 37 of the first 41 games this year.

He leads all of baseball, Jason Kendall is second with 35 games (through yesterda), the next highest NL catchers are Brian Schneider and Benjie Molina with 33 games started.

Counting today, the Dodgers have 3 off days in the next 12 days but after that, they play 16 straight games, have off days surrounding a 3 game set at home against the Angels and then go play 20 games straight into the All-Star Break.

So starting on May 29th, the Dodgers play 39 games in 41 days, so you have to think that Russell is going to need some time off. I also think that it would be nice to see Kemp up to replace one of the pitchers to play some outfield.

What do we think tonight. Good Penny? I hope so for I am going to try to get a nap and stay up for it. It seems to be almost impossible to figure out Penny's strategy, but I've made a pledge to myself to watch more pitch by pitch when its close (which is almost always). Throwing really hard works well. But it works longer and even better when combined with a short range and long range plan.

238 - How on Earth did you find that? I wonder if anyone goes back and reads these comments? It is weird that they are permanently there, since I feel like they drift off into the ether as soon as a new thread opens.

Trying to stay up and watch from the east coast I need a day off almost as much as the team. The best thing about a day off for a team is that they can skip their #5 starter. Some teams won't get quite as much benefit as the D's for there are many teams who have no depth beyond their second or third starter. There is still room for argument over whether a pitcher is better pitching every fourth or fifth day. But I think it is fair to say many agree that more than four days rest is apt to make a pitcher less sharp. So I hope Grits has no wierd ideas.

Re that ESPN test, I particularly liked the answer to this one: "Was temporarily thrown off ballclub for sulking. Has demonstrated a tremendous lack of desire. Is obviously only interested in how he's doing. Is no longer a prospect in my book. He'd be more trouble than he's worth."

Softball Report: My team is playing its 4th game tonight. We are 3-0. We have scored in those three games 36 to our opponents' 13. I have played a flawless 1B, and was rocked in my one game as a pitcher. I'm 9-15, with a triple and two doubles (the triple would have been a homerun if it had been hit by any other human being in Columbus). Last year I was 23-25, so I'm in a serious slump right now. Though I haven't struck out yet, I have swung and missed at a lot of first pitches. Last year I only swung and missed once. I wish CanuckDodgers were here to tell me what's going wrong. I think it might be a character issue.

That was hilarious. I am amazed at how many people treat low-limit the same as no-limit. I have had little trouble making money at 2-4 and 3-6 because of people like that and for people who cold call with J4o

2/4-Low limit poker, should basically consist of drunk people chucking money in the pot.

Wearing sunglasses - Shows that this person thinks this is the World Series of Poker.

"Representing Kings" - Losing despite playing mindgames that no one actually cares about. Generally this person complains that he's simply too smart for the table, and if these people were better, he wouldn't be broke.

Basically, it's a person that thinks they're way smarter than they really are.

268 tourney. When he doesn't play, we're done at 11:30. When he plays, we don't get done until after 1 AM, because he spends half his time trying to "read" the rest of us, and he'll call us out if we don't do what we're "supposed" to do. Meanwhile, the rest of us are usually focused on who's in charge of making margaritas.

Really enjoyed a good game last night. A little concerned in the third when the Dodgers handed the Cards two extra runs on that WP and Error with the bases packed. Then was granted a reprieve in the 5th when sudden "Pinh-hitting dynamo Wilson Betemit crushes a 3 run blast over the center field wall. Then hung on for dear life in the 7th and 9th inning when the Cards creeped closer and Saito had to come through in the 9th again. My wife's green Dodger hat is now 3-0 this year. The power of the green hat!!:)
Off topic: I had two cancellations very recently for my fun little golf tournament in Sylmar this Saturday. Starts at El Cariso Golf course at 11 a.m. Two spots still open, cost is $41.50 but I can give a discount since you need to reimburse me. If interested, the first two that leave contact information and your names on my email will be invited to play. Please contact my email address at sportnut19882003@yahoo.com. Come join the fun. I hope I'm not violating any rules but I am walking on my own personal "Mendoza" line of 20 players per my contract with the course. I have paid for 22 players. I have 6 tee times available so I can accept actually 4 but any player over 22 players would have to pay the course, but i can help out there as well. Leave a phone number so I can talk to you today or tomorrow. Thank you!
Go Blue!!!

277 I've actually walked out on a few free screenings, the films were that bad.

California Split is not great Altman but it does have some good moments; I was just thinking of the opening scenes in particular, at the card house, when the fight breaks out between Gould and the shady guy he's playing with.

Back to baseball: some praise, for once, for Little pinch hitting for a pitcher early (again, for once)...
http://story.scout.com/a.z?s=228&p=2&c=644649

Re: walking out on movies. The worst is when you are a movie reviewer, even a small-time movie reviewer, and you have to stay. Worst movie I ever had to sit through was Carnosaur ... and they even made two sequels!

307 How does someone like that survive that long? Look at the movies he has produced. I mean ... Attach of the Crab Monsters (1957) to Sorority House Massacre (1986) to A Bucket of Blood (1995). I guess I don't understand the world of B-movies.

312 Corman hits the right topic (ahem, if you call it that). Carnosaur came out right after Jurassic Park, when you couldn't walk five feet without running into a snotty seven-year-old with a stuffed dinosaur. Each sequel made less money, until he had bled the money out of the franchise.

His zombie movies were after Night of the Living Dead, his Poe movies were cheap with a built in fanbase. The guy is super smart and cheap as all get-out.

Former NHL prospect Jamie Hoffman up 25 RBI in Cal League, despite spending a lot of time in leadoff spot. He's shown a lot of improvement so far this year. He's 22 but hasn't played nearly as much advanced baseball as most minor leaguers.

Fans of "The Cranberries" might be interested to know that lead singer Dolores O'Riordan just released her first "solo" album. It has always kind of annoyed me when lead singers break off and make albums under their own name (while just substituting another set of musicians behind them).

326- No, I got that. You said that it irritated you when lead singers released albums with new bands. I thought you meant that the lead singer should take the band name with them. You really meant that they shouldn't be allowed to work after the band split?

Orestes Destrade is trying to convince me that Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and A-rod aren't home run hitters. Who thought this segment was a good idea?

One of the Kurkgems (nice) was the Brewers hitting into a pop fly, a little out of the infield, double play, scoring two runs. Bases loaded, the runner on third tagged and scored. The throw home was cut off and got the runner on first in a run down, during which Tony Gwynn scored from second.

Because it was a DP, does that mean no RBI for the batter? Does he get to keep his SF?

I can barely get around in the 80 mph cage and in the 90 mph cage, I just tip the ball.

you just reminded me of a friend of mine who i took to the cages a while back, i told him to try the 90 MPH cage which he did but he looked like a robot trying to hit the ball I told him to relax just "see ball hit ball" from what i understand he's getting allot better.

Figgins sees Matthews every day. He speaks with Pierre, his best friend in baseball, almost every day. He gives Matthews the edge in power, Pierre the edge in speed and thumbs up to the clubs that spent a combined $94 million to bring them to Southern California.

>>> The right-hander credited his turnaround from a slow start in part to a mechanical adjustment he made while working with bullpen coach Dan Warthen. Billingsley said he fixed a flaw in which his "arm angle was a little too far over the top compared to where it usually was at the three-quarters slot." <<<

336 Personally, Bob, I'm a bit flabbergasted at your response, because you're Mr-Catcher's-Interference and always excited about quirky plays. C'mon, this was quirky enough (SF-double-play but two runs score?) that you gotta get into it more. I think you're losing it.

From the same articleYet, if you base the early returns on the standings, the investments are paying off. The Angels are in first place with Matthews, the Dodgers are in first place with Pierre, and isn't that the point?
I think (and hope) that the Dodgers were expecting more than .278/.304/.313 and sub par defense when they signed him to a $44 million contract.

He has occasionally taken a poor route to a ball. Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said Pierre's range has been statistically outstanding over the years and suggested he might simply be struggling to adjust to the conditions of his new home field, with its five decks and palette of pastel seats.
Gotta love Colletti still trying to defend his poor investment."No," Pierre said. "If I play bad, it's because I play bad. It's not the field or any kind of condition."
And then Pierre refuting Colletti's claim

I don't that Pierre will finish the season with a .300 OBP, but up to this point, he has been absolutely atrocious as a hitter.

I've never even heard of Pinango (sounds like a type of Latin dance) but his numbers certainly look good so far. When will the team make the Brazoban for Seanez switch, I wonder. And I wonder how they'll make room for Kemp. Because they will. They have to. Or I'm gonna be mad. Soon.

Our good friend (can we call him that?) Jeff Weaver has put up some pretty interesting numbers so far this year. In 22 innings, he has managed to give up 50 hits, 4 of them being homeruns. To top it all off he has only struck out 12 batters and walked 7. I would imagine those numbers give him a pretty bad BABIP against. It's too late in the evening for me to do the math. vr, Xei

Cool. And here's more on Pinango, who was apparently a well-regarded prospect in the Mets system up through last year. Not sure how the Dodgers acquired him. Anyway:
http://padres.scout.com/2/644887.html
Cassel's counterpart, Las Vegas starting pitcher Miguel Pinango, was on the hill for only his second appearance in Triple-A ball. He had been with the Dodgers High-A club prior to being moved up to the 51s, even though he was not so impressive on paper. He was 1-3 with a 4.61 ERA, but had shown control by walking just six batters in his 27.1 innings of work. The organization must've seen potential in Pinango, and he proved them right in his first start with the 51s, when he picked up the win in five scoreless innings against New Orleans. He scattered four hits, struck out five and walked nobody in the debut.

Pinango continued that dominance Thursday against the Beavers, as he picked up his second win in as many starts, finishing the game allowing only three hits and one run in six innings. The one run came on one swing of the bat in the fifth; otherwise, Pinango was untouchable and showed impressive poise on the mound in every situation all night.

AA - Orenduff pitched his best game post surgery and Cory Dunlap hit a walk off home run. Earlier this week I saw that he had been suspended but I don't know what for and he's already back so it must have been minor.

HighA-Wade pitched a shutout. He was awful last year but is having success this year.
Lucas May took the collar and has really slowed down after his torrid start.

LowA - Wall was creamed and Mattingly played 2nd and k'd 4 times. The only good news was Van Slyke got 3 hits including 2 doubles.

"Jason Schmidt not only threw from a mound this week, he came away the following day without any soreness or swelling beyond the 'normal.' If you need more good news, he showed off all his pitches during the 50-pitch set. While he didn't have his full velocity and ran out of steam quickly, it was definitely a major positive. While reports have Grady Little impressed with what he saw, Schmidt remains at least a couple weeks away, though his progress has been non-standard all along. There's almost certain to be at least one rehab start somewhere before his return to the Dodger rotation, though the timing and location is unknown at this point. As negative as reports out of Dodgertown were when Schmidt was initially injured, the progress he's made is extremely encouraging."

Do you think it was mean of me to turn an office invitation for a pizza lunch of watching the Cubs-White Sox by saying I had too much to get done to waste my time watching two mediocre teams that I care nothing about with a bunch of people who inexplicably care about said mediocre teams?

Luke Allen and Wilkin Ruan seem to have been around forever. Is our OF depth so poor, that the AA team has to play those guys? I remember when Ruan was getting time in CF for the Dodgers, and Luke Allen was thought of as a legit prospect. Now they've come full circle back to AA.

I live in SF and probably watched 50 of his starts over the last 3 seasons. If he can be in the low 90s he is fine.
That is to say 91-93 on most fastballs and reach back for 94 once in a while.
That's where he was last season. He doesn't need to throw 95-96 and probably can't anymore.
This spring he was topping out at 90.

374 He also hit 81 a couple times on opening day. Could have been an error with the scoreboard folks, but Im not too sure. I hope he comes back around 90ish. I prefer a 90mph Schmidt fastball with movement to a straight 94mph Tomko fastball.

370 Checking in while students are testing so let's not tell my boss, 'kay? :)

Schmidt last year was in the low to mid-90's. He was very much like Bartolo Colon is now. He could get to the mid-90's with a "rear back and throw" straight fastball but with little movement. His fastball with movement is in the low 90's. Both Colon and Schmidt were devastating when they were on their games because their fastballs would range from mid- to upper 90's (Schmidt in '04 was averaging well over a strikeout an inning and in '05 Colon won the Cy Young).

Shorter version of this post: low 90's last season. If he's not going to get back there, he's in trouble.

81 should be his change (I/we hope), which is why the diff between 85 and 91 is so important.
Along those lines I love watching guy swing way late through Wolf's 89mph fastball after seeing the 60-something curve. Must be very frustrating.

A late inning bullpen of Saito, Meloan, Brazabon, and Biemel is good enough to allow Broxton to become a starter should the Dodgers be worried about depth in regards to trading Tomko and if Schmidt's fastball never hits 89 again.

Id say Kemp is playing pretty well. 0.301 avg, 0.566 slg is pretty awesome. I don't mind seeing him stay down for another month or so, but those #s are significantly better than any current Dodger- so I think that they are good enough to force a spot soon.
Loney- is disappointing.

|371| I wouldn't say it was rude as you have to do what you need to do, but personally, I would have found it difficult to pass up free pizza and a baseball game, even if it was between two teams I don't care much about.

I wouldn't worry as much about Loney - I think he's having a bit of a slump partially from the psychological wound of not making the big team. It happens. He needs to get over it of course, but now he's probably pressing. I'm still high on him, the Dodgers are surely still high on him, and keep in mind that LaRoche was even less impressive so far this year in AAA and was called up. He's looked fine in the bigs so far. Loney will be fine.

I'm more worried about going up tonight against Santana, who is both due and pitching to keep himself on the big team, basically. Never like going up against someone in that situation who is better than his numbers so far. Hopefully he'll stink just one more time. (Penny's certainly due to come back to earth, too. But if he keeps pitching as he has, they'll be in this one for sure.)

Loney has had several wrist injuries in his young career, an awesome AAA year, a great Fall league, and at least two awesome Spring trainings. He is a line drive hitter that so far this year until of late he has gotton away from his strength perhaps trying to hit with more power.

394 Or a trade. But Pierre won't be traded (alas). Ethier likely won't either. Gonzo certainly won't since he's only on a 1 yr contract anyway and has been productive at times. So it'd have to be another position player. You're right, basically, there's not room for him right now. I wish there was one more Wilson Valdez we could DFA. ;-) (Well there is Martinez... but they probably like having that extra infielder for safety.)

379 As I said, I wouldn't think many DFAed players would want to hang around.

But in cases like Valdez, the Dodger brass has praised his contribution. So if he isn't traded or claimed, he might want to work all the angles possible to increase his chances of coming back to LA (however unlikely that may be).